Executive Compensation and Income Inequality

Abstract

The articles explores the connection between exorbitant executive compensation and the growing income inequality in our country. It discusses the tradition legal attempts to rein in corporate remuneration as well as the more recent “Say-on-Pay” right given shareholders in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010. The article concludes that negative stockholder votes there can be evidence that directors have breached their fiduciary duties by granting overly generous pay hikes to their top officials.

Keywords: executive compensation, corporate waste, income inequality